Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Are premium bullets needed for elk?

Is he enroute to Iowa?

You seem bitter, SKane.

Sucks when the bullies get bullied.

At higher velocities & questionable angles premium bullets might make the difference in a fatal wound and a recovered elk or a slow death & not recovering your elk. Shooting them under 300 yards broadside through the heart/lungs they might be less effective. At 75 yards angling through the shoulder you bet they make a difference. Broken bones & an exit wound are really nice to have in that situation. If you hunt like a bow hunter & take only sure thing shots with your rifle no difference at all. If you take a shot though a hole in the trees & brush that angles through the vitals they are well worth the added cost.

People kill elk with arrows traveling at 250fps or slower, but a bullet traveling a few thousand feet per second doesn’t have a chance unless it’s premium…..

Some bullets bounce off elk

Some bullets hit them right in the heart but the elk runs 100 miles and is never found

Some bullets hit an elk 6 times in the vitals and that elk kept on running, never to be found

All bullets are premium. Hit em where it counts

I am not a premium snob by any means, but I am not sure I would agree with comparing how bullets kill as opposed to how broadheads kill. That's a church girl to hooker comparison (literally?). One kills by shock and destruction, the other kills by internal bleeding: at least that's how they kill when used as designed. Both can be insanely lethal, but their mechanism is vastly different. What are your thoughts on a bullet at 250 FPS?

Only if you're shooting a .243.

If it puts a hole in the right place then it will work. It’s all about a hole through something that matters

+1000

Best answer here

One slices its way through, the other pounds its way through. You can put a deep hole in something and get penetration at 250 fps using razor sharp blades, but not with a bullet.

Archery and rifle can be similar in one way.

I'll put it in equation form, for all you fellow databasers.

Broadhead + heavy bone = bad

Light, frangible bullets + heavy bone = bad

Of course.......those equations to not apply when the weapon is "in the hands of an expert".

All I’m trying to say is with an arrow, a premium bullet, or a blue box federal, you need to put a hole in a vital. Nothing will kill without a hole in an important organ….or artery.

Are you saying that there are non-premium bullets that If placed where an arrow needs to be in order to kill an elk, the bullet won’t kill but the arrow will?

That's a very gnarrly question, especially when it's doubled up..

What I'm saying is, if they're both travelling at 250 fps, "yes."

You two should work in a think tank.

.........serving coffee.

Btw, this was a humorous post, as I’ve killed and seen more elk killed than 99.9% of the folks here, most with bow; musket and cup n core bullets. But carry on, it’s quite enjoyable.👍

But aren't elk armor plated?

That's what I heard before I started hunting them. Since ten have seen them killed with old-fashioned 2-blade broadheads (me) and probably two dozen cartridges from the .22-250 up to the mid-.30's. Amazingly, all those hit in the vitals fell inside 100 yards.

While I hate to disagree with mule deer but I’ve had an older 150 grain Nosler ballistic tip hit and fragment on a bull elks ribs. It died after roughly 500 yards luckily leaving a bloody trail in the snow the whole way. Had a hunting partners bull elk shot through both lungs & broken shoulder walking steadily toward the private ranch before I finished it with a too high spine shot. They aren’t bulletproof but they are tough & sometimes can cover ground with clearly fatal wounds.

Wonder if a 160 grain bullet traveling at 250fps, shot from 30 yards away would indeed penetrate to the heart of an elk if we’ll placed. It wouldn’t open, so it would be like a field point……so possibly I guess.

Would an arrow traveling 3000fps kill an elk at 600 yards?

No, you couldn't hit one at 600 because the vanes would get ripped off and it wouldn't fly straight

I didn't say "fletching" because you need a really good compound bow to get to 3,000 fps.

So after premium is defined we gotta ask the question, before the Nosler Partition showed up did hunters shoot and kill elk every season? I remember the two most respected bullets in Alaska by the guides and hard core hunters I met as a kid in the 60's were the Nosler Partitions and the "old style" Core-Lokt bullets. I wonder how much "bullet failure" was poor shot placement for a variety of reasons, or poor bullet selection for the chosen animal.